Nutrition Religion

I've been reading a lot on nutrition lately, mainly because I'm overweight and want to lose some. I've added lots of fruits and greens to my diet, experienced a few sugar rushes from fruit smoothies... it was interesting, all in all. I think I've seen the addictive potential of dieting, to a degree.

What really really shocked me, though, along the way, was the amount of used car salesmanship and religious dogmatism going around among dedicated dietists. Like vegans, raw-foodists, you-name-it. It's like everyone's completely losing their rationality when it comes to food.

And in fact, the similarities with religious topics are striking: There still is an enormous lack of knowledge about what is actually healthy, and there is an enormous amount of suffering going around in this area.

One of the better sites I found was http://www.beyondveg.com/, a site by someone who went through some of the "healthy diet" fads and almost got killed in the process.

Needless to say, mentioning this site is prohibited on some of the raw-food-vegan forums I've visited. Always a good sign!

So... Duh! How much I despise this extremism and fearmongering, this marketing and moneymaking in the name of some wonderful diet plan that will make you skinny, healthy, "spiritual" and rich!

edited 17th May '11 10:56:46 AM by vijeno

It's a big money business. People eat almost every day. Who wouldn't want a chunk of that change?

Sure. I didn't know until recently that there seem to be people who actually suffer from "orthorexia", where they obsess over eating the correct food and it drives them into deeper and deeper extremes until they can only eat, like, cooked lamb and broccoli. Binges of ice cream, and guilt trips included, of course.

Aaargh, the never-ending creativity of the human soul in creating more suffering!

I do enjoy my occasional potato chips. Even if I cringe if I glance over the nutritional values box.

My philosophy is never to adhere to one philosophy of nutrition 100%. Eat a lot of fruits and veggies? Yeah sure! Eat ONLY those? No friggin way!

And sometimes, a Schnitzel is just a Schnitzel!

edited 17th May '11 11:48:37 AM by vijeno

The problem is that it's human nature to want magic solutions, and it's human nature to scam the gullible.

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

When I saw this thread's title, I thought, wow, that's the kind of thing I'd expect Rawrdiente to post.

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

I should probably try to lose a little bit of weight too — I am still within reasonable limits, but just barely. But one trick that served me well in the past is: develop expensive tastes, especially when it comes to meat.

While going entirely vegetarian (or, even worse, vegan) requires one to pay a bit of attention in order to get a reasonable balance of nutrients, it is true that we tend to eat more meat that we should.

Developing a habit to eat massive, juicy $20 steaks on Sundays, and saving the money for it by avoiding "cheap", low-quality meat the other days, is probably healthier overall. And quite a bit tastier, too.

edited 17th May '11 12:29:38 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I've developed a simple theory that has served me well so far:

1: If it is food, eat it.

2: if it is not food, don't eat it.

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[inb4paleo]

Just for the record, it's far easier to lose weight by combining diet and exercise, rather than doing either alone. The best way to build muscle quickly is to eat a ton of calories, but burn even more than that. (This is what they do in, for example, military basic training.) Granted, this is next-to-impossible without someone like a drill sergeant who is paid to yell at you to work harder for 20 hours a day, but still, diet and exercise is better than either alone.

Other than that, different diets work for different people. If vegan works for you, then great. If Atkins does a better job, then use that instead.

Of course, what got me to lose weight was the Crohn's diet. I don't recommend it.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Eh, I replace dieting with exercise. So long as I do steady amount of exercise everyday, my body maintains itself. Plus, I really do enjoy my burgers and such.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

I'm considering exercising/dieting, because whereas I'm hardly close to overweight *

, since I don't live a particularly healthy lifestyle at present and wouldn't want to suddenly start gaining weight. *shrugs*

Asthma makes running a bit of a pain. I should find out where the nearest gym is, to be honest.

The thing to remember folks, is that exercise is very important as well. Dieting alone won't get you skinny if you live a sedentary lifestyle without active hobbies, or have a job that involves sitting at a desk all day.

-greedily munches his chinese food-

I usually eat healthy before a big workout day, or rather I eat lots of good fuels such as pasta that I plan on burning in the workout. I have a horrible diet for the most part, but I always get at least one serving of fruits and vegetables per day, and drink lots of water. That's kept me pretty much at a lean and athletic 145-150 for several years now.

Edit: Oh, and remember.. Both will contribute to you being healthy, nutrition more than exercise. But Exercise will get you some muscles, and it's the best way to get thinner. So keep your priorities in mind. The end goal is to do both, but that's not always easy or possible.

edited 17th May '11 3:22:35 PM by Barkey

Ah, the patented "See Food" diet.

Fight smart, not fair.

My great-granddad lived to 97 on pound cake and apple pie, and I can too!

Besides, by the time I'm old all medical ailments will be inexpensively curable, according to this guy. He's on some ridiculous life-extending regimen to try to survive until then, but if he's right I can be as irresponsible as I want. :P

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How Bear Grylls-y.

Even Goat Testicles?

Eh, I wouldn't count on it too much. But as people said, exercising helps along with eating right.

Also, don't fruits have a lot of sugar?

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ

[1]

Read this.

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Dubious foodity.

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Edwards Proofity. (WARNING: SKINNED GOAT BALLS.)

edited 17th May '11 6:23:27 PM by Zersk

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ

Raw? Yeah, definitely not food.

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You know, I had a dream about meeting him a couple nights ago. It was... odd.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

A grassfed steak can have vitamin E as alpha tocopherol comparable to a 100g broccoli. True Vitamin A as Retinol is only available in animal foods (beta-carotene is unconvertable to many people). We don't eat too much meat, we eat too many grains, and raise our blood sugar. The Standard Western Diet gets about 74% of calories from plants in the form of blood sugar raising nutrient poor grains, Rancid Omega-6 polyunsaturated laden vegetable oils, and sugar and HFCS. In fact due to high protein content meat digests slowly in your stomach and helps you feel full. In fact people tend to think meat as bad in a religious way. It is "pleasure" and "everyone knows" pleasure is bad for you. That is a false and evangelical premise. Hell, leafy greens have goitorogens that can lead to thyroid problems, and hypothyroidism is common too. We eat an average of 1.5g of natural pesticides per day, in the form of carcinogenic phytochemicals.

Nutrients only in animal foods include Taurine, Carnitine, Creatine, Coenzyme Q10, Cholesterol (it's a potent antioxidant, not an artery clogger), Vitamin A as Retinol, Conjugated linoleic acid, Essential Fatty Acids as EPA and DHA, choline, Vitamin B12, Vitamin K2, and heme-iron, which are not found in plants. Most of the meat is bad uses observational studies, which can be easily manipulated. (I can post a link to a comedian showing how easy it is to bullshit data.) One meat in fact we should eat more of, are organs. Organs phased out of the american diet because they are high in cholesterol, but they have lower fat and higher protein contents than steaks, as well as supplement high doses of certain nutrients. Liver is a superfood indeed. Oh well, meat has become so associated with hedonism that it is hard to change perspective.

The moral is all food has good and bad and we need balance. As a final food for thought, lying vegans cite Okinawa as an example of living plant based and healthy. MAINLAND Japan is full of plant based diets, but Okinawa is where all the 100-yr olds are and Okinawa is the ISLAND OF PORK. Think about it. We only have an appendix, a vestige of a caecum which was meant in our evolutionary past to break down plant fiber with bacteria and ferment them into fatty acids, now, we can only get non-fiber carbs from plants as energy, and only very few fibers ferment. We aren't herbivores, the reason meat tastes good is because we are meant to consume it. That's why I believe in Paleo, because we can eat pretty much all the good things raw vegans can eat and we can eat everything else on top of that.

No Loni I did not say we were carnivores, I'm only listing the benefits of animal foods as they have plenty. Omnivore is the way to go because no diet in nature is extreme, and we are Omnivores indeed. We metabolize protein faster than herbivores, but slower than carnivores. We can convert carotenes to Vitamin A at a slow rate, slower than herbivores, but more than carnivores, which convert none at all. I'm merely pointing the unnatural ness of veganism.

edited 18th May '11 7:06:04 AM by Princeofstar

I don't disagree for the hell of it. I just want the real truth. Life should be a quest for love & the truth. Tell me when I'm wrong.

Good grief, what a wall of text. The 'enter' key is your friend.

Just because we don't have a caecum doesn't mean we're not meant to eat plants. If we were meant to be solely carnivorous our digestive tract would be even shorter than it is now. We're omnivores - neither extreme is not going to do us much good.

I suspect organs aren't out of favour because they're full of cholesterol so much as that people think they're disgusting these days.

Be not afraid...

Oh yes, fruits are high on sugar. So high, in fact, that I get a sugar rush from a smoothie. I still think it's better than a cup of cornflakes with sugar on top, though. At least it has some fibers left.

As for Tom Billings and that link, of course you can get addicted to avocados. You can get addicted to almost anything. A nigh-religious atmosphere around whatever you're addicted to, and guilt trips about your "failings", will drive the addiction into unkown heights.

I'm saying, be wary about priests and salesmen. They have something to sell, and they will most probably only tell you half of the truth.

Well, I think that in the rich western countries, a short period of a purely vegetarian diet will probably be a good thing. Just... don't make a religion out of it, don't think that it will make you happier or more enlightened, and do check your sources.

edited 18th May '11 12:09:37 AM by vijeno